摘要：With over four decades of economic progress and development, Singapore's population today stands at 5.1 million, compared to only two million In 1970, with citizens making up 64% or Z2 million of the population and the remaining 36% consisting of foreigners and permanent residents.1 Singapore has certainly come a long way from being what Chua Bang Huat (1995, p. 6) termed a "reluctant nation'1. The city-state has witnessed “economic transformation from 丨 labour-intensive 丨 mport-substitution focus to a higher skilled, high-technology export-oriented industrialisation” (Low, 2002, pp. 421-422). Currently competing in the new globalised knowledge-based economy (KBE), It Is clear to the government that to ba a successful KBE, intellectual capital that comes with foreign talent is essential, hence “Singapore must become a cosmopolitan, global city, an open society where people from many lands can feel at home.
